


Morning's Light

by anticommute



Series: A Song For The Moon [2]
Category: B1A4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, and yes dongwoo is a girl lmfao, kind of, maybe not, there's Reasons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-23 04:49:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2534768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticommute/pseuds/anticommute
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shin Dongwoo is many things. But she certainly isn't expecting someone to fall through her roof, and certainly not someone who is fleeing after failing to kill one of the old king's younger sons. But life is full of surprises, and the day has just begun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Shin Dongwoo was many things. Student, doctor, neighbour, sister, daughter. Among others. She took pride in these things. What she was not, at the moment, was pleased.

Closing the door and bolting it behind her with a definite click, she crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned back against the door. Her heart was pounding as if it would explode out of the cavity which held it. She hoped it did not show. Instead, she pulled her crossed arms closer to herself. She waited, listened, until she was sure, very sure that the danger was clear, before she took several steps forward. There was only space to take several steps forward.

"They're gone," she announced to the apparently empty room. _Her_ apparently empty room.

An unruly head of brown hair popped out from under her bed - her bed! of all the uncreative places to hide.

"I'm sorry," the kid said, all puppy eyes and pouting lips. She had half a mind to forgive him for -- "I really didn't know he was the prince."

\-- falling through her roof.

"A prince," she corrected automatically. This did not feel like the correct response. "One of the princes. And you fell through my roof."

"There's a hole in your roof," he said petulantly. Still half under her bed, and looking even more like a kicked puppy. Dongwoo really couldn't handle this. She sighed.

"Yes, there is a hole in my roof," she agreed - it had been there when she had moved in and it had never been fixed, unless one were to deign the tarp that had covered it to be a fix - "now please come out."

The tarp, incidentally, was now hanging freely from the ceiling.

She'd taken on the authorative tone she'd been taught to use with patients, and was guiltily relieved when the boy did crawl out, and even sit quietly in the chair she directed him to. He was tall, taller than she thought he'd be with that young boy face. Taller than she was, and Dongwoo was not short. There was a streak of dirt on his face, and he had an overall fairly harmless tripped in the street somewhat scruffed up look. She couldn't imagine what he'd done that could've warranted as many soldiers to be looking for him as there was.

Well. She could imagine.

"Are you hurt?" She spoke briskly. He'd fallen through her roof - it was unlikely he wasn't.

"No," he answered far too quickly.

She raised an eyebrow. "I'm a doctor," she said. It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. She sighed. "Assistant to a doctor, but still fully trained."

Reluctantly, the kid nodded. "A little," he said. "My leg...and..." He lifted his left arm - Dongwoo didn't know how she'd missed that darkened spot. Inwardly, she cursed her inattention. She'd noticed the slight limp, but that could've been from before, she'd filed that away.

Dongwoo nodded briskly and went to retrieve her bag from the corner. "I'll need you to remove your shirt," she said, as she bustled around the small room, setting some water to boil. When she turned, he hadn’t moved.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Do I have to?" he asked petulantly.

Dongwoo assessed the location of the injury - injuries, actually. Tutting, she stepped closer to examine his arm - two cuts, one in his upper arm, another on what she guessed was his forearm. From the sharp tears in the fabric of the sleeve, knife wounds. She could also see that the palms of his hands were badly skinned, no doubt from whatever attempt he’d made to break his fall.

"I need that arm," she said. "Out of the shirt." Pulling up the only other chair in the room, she waited until he slowly undid the tie and eased the sleeve off his arm. To his credit, he barely flinched. 

Several jagged, poorly healed scars in various degrees of fading were visible under the smeared blood. Frowning, Dongwoo picked up the cloth from the bowl of clean, cool water, and set to cleaning up the wounds.

"I tried to kill the prince."

Dongwoo, to her immense credit, did not drop or break anything. She did, however, freeze, take a deep breath, and close her eyes tightly.

"I did not need to hear that," she said. "I really didn't need to know that."

"I thought you might want to know," the kid said, only now he didn't sound so much like a kid. No, too old, too weary, too world wise, before he slipped into a well of unsureness. "Since you're helping me and all. I mean, I would want to know. But I didn't. I didn't kill him."

Something more urgent, more detached, took over. It had to, because Dongwoo’s thoughts were racing.

"That's good," she said. He'd been lucky - they'd both been clean wounds, not poisoned, and not so deep nor wide that they could not heal without damaging muscle or movement. She'd simply clean them up and bandage them. Tell him to keep them clean.

Perhaps, if Dongwoo knew what the future held, she would have held her tongue. But she was curious, as humans were curious. Nor could she know what the future held. And so she asked, queried, learned what she might’ve been happier not to know.

"Why shouldn't I turn you in?" she asked. “That was treason."

The kid shrugged, tilted his head slightly. "I don't know," he said very honestly.

And, because she did not know what the answer would be, she asked again. "Did you not kill him because he was a prince, or because you couldn't?"

A moment of hesitation, and then he shrugged again, before looking down at the hand in his lap. "I don't kill children," he said very quietly. "I can't."

Dongwoo's mind began to work very quickly. Some years ago, the order of succession to the throne had been very clear. When one spoke of the prince, even as a child, Dongwoo had known who was being spoken of. Everyone did. With the death of the crown prince and the disappearance of his brother, however, several factions had appeared within the kingdom and things had become less clear cut. The brother, despite having disappeared, was undoubtedly alive, infuriatingly so, as he insisted on making it known, at least once a year since he'd disappeared. A good move, on his part, had those vying for power not taken the unrest to try and maneuver those young princes who, until that moment, had been nowhere near contention. They were not so young now, except for one who had been barely weaned when the crown prince had died. He would be, Dongwoo reasoned, about seven or eight years now, and very much a child. He was a prince. One of the princes. Now, had he not been the only full brother of the now departed former crown prince, his claim would have been the weakest, but as far as blood went, well, there were those who argued.

"I see," she said. The entire time, the kid had been quiet, eyes downcast. She neatly bound off the second bandage, and nodded to herself. "What's your name?"

"Gong...chan," the kid answered. He had clearly been taken off guard, and looked away as soon as she met his eyes. Perhaps, not his real name? But it would do. She couldn't simply call him 'that kid'. 

Now that the adrenaline was surely leaving his system, the kid was clearly trembling, shaken at least as much as, if not more than, Dongwoo was at the events of the evening. With the water boiled, Dongwoo stood and searched through the very crowded cupboard which stood in the far corner, by the foot of the bed. She did not own many things, particularly not many valuable things, but what things she did own had to be put somewhere. The cupboard was crowded, and it took some maneuvering to remove the small box of calming tea, and some more to retrieve a second cup. She could do with some tea herself.

She could also turn the kid in. But Dongwoo was not that sort of person. Killing was wrong, hurting was wrong. She was a doctor, her father had been a doctor, she believed in these things strongly. Maybe she still would. But not right now. She did not care for politics, nor did she care overmuch about who succeeded the throne. But right now, this Gongchan was her patient, and she was very adamantly sure that meant she'd just taken his care under her hand in all aspects.

When she turned back with the teapot and the cups, Gongchan was as still as he'd been moments earlier - his left arm lying limply on the table, his other hand in his lap, his eyes blank as he looked down. She felt a sudden pang of pity for him. Even knowing what it was he'd done - and, she'd quickly surmised, what he usually likely did for coin - she couldn't help but feel sorry for the seemingly lost child sitting in her very small room. Now that she thought about it, what would she do with him. They would be searching for him for the better part of the night, but her room was small. There was enough room for the bed, the table, two chairs, two chests, and a cupboard. Five paces one way, ten the other, but it was what she could afford, on her still limited earnings.

Dongwoo poured the tea and pushed one of the cups into his limp hand. He looked up, startled, eyes wide.

"Drink it," she instructed. "It's not poisoned."

This drew a burst of nervous laughter from the kid, but he did finally bring his good hand above the table and wrapped his fingers around the cup. Gone now was the initial bravado and cheekiness with which he'd told her "there's no one here!", after he'd fallen through the roof, quite startling her out of her wits and away from the text she'd been reading. The text was now forgotten on her bed, and she still wanted to look at his leg. Instead, he simply seemed very small, very young, and very tired. He would, she decided, sleep here tonight, after she'd looked at his leg. She told him as much.

He stared at her, with those very wide eyes of his. "But...I should go..." he said. "In case they come back."

"They won't," she said, very sure of it, and even as she said it, she was. There were too many rooms here, too many streets. They would be occupied searching through the town even once. And it was unlikely that they would return, in particular, to her humble abode. No, they would not return, and for the night, he would be safe here.

Her mind made up, it was a simple matter to determine that his ankle was sprained, to bandage it, and decide what she would spend the night reading. He protested, but not too much, when she pushed him to the bed. How could he, when he was asleep almost even before he'd laid down? 

In the morning, as Dongwoo slept, her head resting on the table, the boy would slip out the door, leaving a note in unruly writing, apologising for the roof and the trouble he'd caused and with more than enough coins to finally fix the roof. He also left, though this he did not know, something greater than he could know. But so lay the threads of the weaver, unpredictable to those it bound, for the picture was far greater than any one thread could weave.

 

-

 

As the days grew short and the evenings cold, Dongwoo would have little opportunity nor reason to truly muse over that one night. There were things, of course, such as when the rain fell and she was suddenly grateful to not have to find a pail with which to catch the deluge that fell through her roof, but she seldom found her thoughts in that direction. The practice was busy, the doctor’s patients always numerous in the fall season, or so she had been told. She’d scarce finished her studies a year since, and had only joined on that spring. She’d come recommended, of course, but these days, who wasn’t? A bit odd, one of her last teachers had called her, but with a steady head. In the end, it had been her father’s name that had truly served her well. “His girl are you? No surprise. Could do with a set of steady hands,” the old doctor had said. A steady head, she hadn’t bothered to correct him, because heavens knew where she was supposed to get her start, if someone didn’t accept her soon. She tried not to think about how many rejections she’d received with a sad shake of the head and a heavy implication that if only she’d been a boy...

She tended to dislodge such thoughts even before they were fully formed. Instead, she turned her hand to preparing the medicines and lotions that drew the patients to Doctor Jang with complaints of a cough or sore joints or a persistent ache in head or neck. She watched, listened, learned. It could be lonely, especially on days when she was hidden nearly perpetually behind the curtain which separated the front room where the doctor saw the patients and where she prepared infusions and all the other things the doctor might need, which was why she always relished the moments when she was sent out on errands, usually to the apothecary. There were, after all, closely guarded secrets in every trade.

“They’re not even really secrets,” Sungyeol, the apothecary’s son and apprentice tended to grumble. Dongwoo liked Sungyeol. He was awkward and long limbed but he had an easy laugh and didn’t seem to mind too much when the laughter was directed towards himself. “There’s just too many _things_ to memorize. Believe me. I’d teach them all to you if you wanted to learn."

“Maybe some day,” Dongwoo said, amused. She did want to learn, but she had her hands full with her own lists of things to learn and familiarize herself with. How to set a bone, for instance, or, as she’d been reading this morning, how best to stop the bleeding after the amputation of a limb. Sungyeol, in the front and manning the counter as usual, asked her about the text as he went about filling the items on her list.

“One suggestion was ground aleva,” Dongwoo remembered as she watched Sungyeol climb up ladders and frown as he pulled out drawers. “It does stop bleeding very quickly."

“Hard to get, though,” Sungyeol said. “It doesn’t grow well here and since outside trade doesn’t go that way anymore, the price has gone way up."

“True,” Dongwoo agreed.

“Still, I can’t imagine cutting off someone’s leg or arm. Just thinking of the bone sticking out, ugh.” Sungyeol shivered dramatically, as he hopped off the ladder, a small box in hand. With deft practice, he measured out a precise amount, sealing it in one of the small wooden boxes they kept for that express purpose. Dongwoo watched, awed as always at how easily he did the task. There were some items on the list that she would have to return for in the afternoon - they would take time to prepare, and it would benefit neither of them for her to stand about as he did so.

With a promise that it would be done before the sun was halfway set, Sungyeol cheerfully waved to Dongwoo as she left, fully assuming she’d be back in a few hours. She assumed so too.

As it turned out, they were both wrong.

It had rained early that morning, and the streets were still damp. The clouds overhead promised more rain, and Dongwoo glanced up and hurried her steps back towards the practice. She was not, at the moment, thinking about a brown haired waif. Nor was she thinking of the state of the kingdom. If she had known, she might have thought of at least the one, if not the other. But that was how it went, with mortals. The not knowing, that was.

But no, she did not know.

She did know to scream, however, when a hand closed around her wrist. And then another hand covered her mouth as the first pulled her into an alleyway, and what she did know, truly, for the first - but not last - time in her life, was fear.

 

-

 

There are always pieces in every puzzle that serve no purpose beyond filling in a space, that exist only to hold together one piece and another. They are crucial to make any one particular story, but, in the grand scheme of things, could always be replaced. A thread that is only one of indistinguashble many in an afternoon sky, however, may be the defining blaze of moonlight in an otherwise dim night.

When he’d been given a description and a request, Huang Zitao had not thought of himself as anything beyond a friend

He hadn’t really been expecting her to scream though. That, he acknowledged, had been bad thinking on his part.

“You really don’t know how to talk to a woman, do you?” His companion, a shorter young man about his own age was apparently torn between laughter and consternation. Unlike Tao’s long lithe limbs, his strength was more apparent in his build. Him and Tao, physically, might as well have been a study of opposites, within some bound of reason. While Tao’s natural glance could seem intense, nearly angry, Wonsik’s was brighter, more open, and, as he liked to say, less prone to scaring off the girls.

Tao huffed. “Like you’re one to talk."

As it was, the woman they’d been asked to find had her arms crossed and was glaring at them both. “Let me go,” she snapped. “This is kidnapping. I’ll report you both."

“I don’t think so,” Tao said. He glanced over his shoulder at the door. They were in a safe house, one of few that he, they, truly considered safe. Not much of one, but it was a room, with space for a pallet or two. A small table, a chair. And easy enough to watch for intruders. He wasn’t looking for intruders, not now. No, he was waiting. Perhaps, he’d admit, a little anxiously.

“He hasn’t explained a thing, has he?”

Tao glared at his companion, his lips quirked now in pure amusement. Catching Tao’s glance, he merely shrugged. It wasn’t his place, it meant. The thing was, it wasn’t Tao’s, either. Favour for a friend. That was all.

And as much as he hated to admit it, Tao really didn’t know how to talk to a woman. Not yet, at any rate. So he merely stared at her until she blinked and looked away.

“You can’t leave,” he said, and then hesitated. It sounded worse than he would’ve liked it to. “You’re not allowed to leave."

That….he quickly realized, didn’t make it any better. Beside him, Wonsik chortled. Tao looked at him. The chortles abruptly turned into a cough.

“What he means is that—"

“I needed to talk to you."

Someone - _someone_ \- abruptly said, from in the room, behind Dongwoo. She whirled, and by the window, was a somewhat familiar face from a few weeks past now. She stared, eyes wide. They had climbed no fewer than three flights of stairs to reach this room, if she recalled. Which meant...

“The roof,” Gongchan said, pointing sheepishly upwards. “Bad habit."

“The door exists for a reason,” Tao grumbled.

“Like you’re one to talk.” Wonsik saw an opportunity, and took it. Tao swatted at him half heartedly, but only because it was half true.

Laughing easily, the new arrival stepped quickly around Dongwoo and to Dongwoo’s consternation, embraced the two other men who’d she’d taken to be thieves and kidnappers of the worst sort. Evidently not, she now realized, although she wondered if, given what little she could recall of this boy, she’d been too far off the mark.

She’d been too scared to say much at first, and now, with the adrenaline draining away, she was afraid she couldn’t. There were some quick, hurried words she could not hear, and then the boy’s friends were gone, leaving her alone in the room with the kid who’d crashed through her roof nearly two moons ago.

“I’m sorry,” he said, turning to her as soon as the door had closed. “I didn’t know how else I could talk to you. I told them not to scare you?"

The last question - for it was a question, Dongwoo quickly realized - was so lost and plaintive that she quickly lost the will to be angry. It was hard to be angry, she was learning, with such a face. 

“I’m not easily scared,” she lied. Again, she crossed her arms over her chest and did her best to look stern. “But I was in the middle of an errand and I must return soon. There are more civil ways to talk to a person.”

The kid seemed genuinely distressed as he worried at his lip. “I know, I know. But it had to be during the day, and you’re so hard to get ahold of during the day, and messages can be intercepted."

“Slow down, I can barely understand you.” Dongwoo frowned at him, not in upset, but because it was true - his words were rushed and quickly becoming garbled.

He smiled at her sheepishly, running a hand through his mess of loose curls. “I messed up,” he said, slower now. “I messed up when I failed, and I messed up when I hid in your place. They…don’t accept failure."

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dongwoo said flatly. She did, though, and that scared her. “But the less I know, the better."

Gongchan shook his head. Sharply, violently. He stepped forward, gripped her arms. “But that’s what I’m trying to _say_. You can’t not know, because I messed up, and because they like to clean up their loose ends and that’s what’s going to happen if you go back and leave this room now!"

“You’re hurting me.” Dongwoo said this far more calmly than she felt. And certainly far more calmly than Gongchan was now, eyes afraid, tone near frenzied. She was quickly gathering who the kid meant by ‘they’, if not in detail than at least in relation to himself. She was also quickly understanding why Gongchan seemed to have asked his friends to find her and bring her here, to this room several floors up in an area she was so unfamiliar with. Her heart seemed fit to burst in her chest.

Slowly, yet in a manner that seemed almost hasty once he seemed to realize where his hands were, he slackened his grip, but did not let go. It was almost as if, Dongwoo mused, he couldn’t. 

“That night, when you hid me, I should have left right away. I don’t know who, but someone must have seen me leave. They’ve been having me watched, since then, but it’s easier to get away during the day, so I asked for a favor. I shouldn’t have been so careless, but the least I can do is warn you, so they don’t kill you."

Kill her! The boy’s voice trailed off, but even with his words dropping to a whisper, those two words echoed so loudly about the empty room he may as well have shouted them. He had not, of course, because they were very dangerous words.

“So now I’ll know why I’m dying when they do kill me?” Dongwoo’s voice was steady. Oddly. She seemed to be good at faking steadiness. It was good practice, she suddenly thought, for when she did have to saw off someone’s leg and saw the bone sticking out.

Gongchan made some choked sound at the back of his throat as he shook his head. “You’re not going to die,” he said. “I’ll protect you."

The thought of this half grown boy protecting her was so ludicrous that Dongwoo wanted to laugh. But she didn’t, because she remembered that strange sorrow in his eyes that night as he’d said _I can’t_ , as well as some deeper memory of another boy, one far younger than the one who stood before her now, just as eager, just as sure. He meant it, she knew, and it would be disrespectful not to heed him.

But she was, if not yet a doctor, then a doctor’s assistant.

“Very well. But I’ll need to bring these medicines back to the practice, and there are medicines to be picked up this afternoon.” She spoke briskly, as if his words hadn’t affected her whatsoever, and patted the bag slung across her back.

Gongchan eyed her critically, and then nodded. “I’ll ask Tao to,” he said. “And he can also bring you anything you need from home."

“Excuse me?"

“It’s just for a while. He’ll tell your boss that you had a family emergency or something, had to leave town quickly. Once I’m gone long enough something’ll happen then they’ll forget about you then you can go back to everything being normal. I know it’s not much, but at least there’s money—"

“It’s not about money,” Dongwoo said. And then, as she thought about his words: “what do you mean, once you’re gone long enough?"

Gongchan shrugged, quirked his head to the side. “I can’t stay here,” he said.

Shin Dongwoo was many things - confused, frightened, not always the sharpest blade in the box. But she was also frustrated, and perhaps, guided by something greater than she understood.

“I’m coming with you,” she said, and she knew, even before those words had fully formed in her mind, that she was, and that this, somehow, was the right thing to do.

“You can’t.” The protest was immediate. “Travelling is dangerous."

“I’m sure it is,” she said placidly. “How’s the arm?"

“Sorry?"

“Your arm. The one with the knife wounds."

“How did you know…"

She snorted. “A poor doctor I’d be if I didn’t."

“A doctor’s assistant.” But he was smiling, a little, some of the edge of fear having dissipated. It reassured her.

“No, I’m going to come with you. There’s no guarantee that ‘they’ will forget, whoever ‘they’ are, and I don’t want to live life looking over my shoulder the whole time.” Already, she was thinking about what things she would need to retrieve or have retrieved. She did not, after all, have many things.

“It’s dangerous,” Gongchan said again, the protest weaker this time. 

“It can also be lonely,” she said.

Whatever else she had to say, however, was preempted by a commotion from the streets below. They glanced at each other, and then, as one, rushed to the window. And, as one, they slowly turned to look at each other, away from the crowds.

“The king is dead,” one of them said.

“Yes,” the other agreed. “He is."

Dongwoo had never cared much for politics, nor who would succeed the throne. But she knew, as she was sure the boy beside her knew, that with no clear successor, they were all in for some troubled times. It was a good thing she’d already decided that she would leave the capital.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “First thing in the morning."

But, to her surprise, Gongchan shook his head. Not with urgency, nor fear, nor any of those things that had come to the surface so easily as he’d conveyed to her in frantic words what he’d had her dragged from her morning errands to say. He shook his head slowly, steadily. And in that moment, Dongwoo realized that he was far older than he seemed, if not in years, then in the age of his soul.

“No,” he said, “we have to leave now."

And as she silently wondered if he meant to include her in that, Shin Dongwoo looked out the window at the crowds thronging the streets, also wondered how in heaven’s name they were going to manage that.

As it turned out, it wasn’t so difficult at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be longer but I realised about 25% of the way through I wanted to go back to another part of the story so uh. Cut this off at the 75% point? /o/

Gongchan had been waiting less than five minutes away, when she’d emerged from her home, and had effortlessly lead her to the wall, and then past it, all without meeting a single guard. Dongwoo didn’t question it, and assumed it was from his line of work. What she guessed was his line of work. A mule awaited them outside the walls, and she realized that Gongchan had been planning to disappear today, or soon, regardless of her whereabouts. The question of urgency nagged at her, but the only conversation between them was silence, except for a brief argument about who would ride. It wasn’t until they had put a fair bit of distance between the walls of the capital and themselves did Dongwoo notice the strange tension leak from the boy’s stiff shoulders. It was longer before either of them said anything.

“I’m sorry.” They’d just been passed by a family in a cart when Gongchan suddenly spoke up. The dust settled behind the cart and about them. Dongwoo was still blinking the dust from her eyes when the kid pushed on. “About all this, I mean."

Dongwoo shifted her weight in the saddle, a little sore, as she mulled over her words. She had questions, of course, lots of them. So many that she didn’t know where to begin. She was also still a little in shock, at herself. She had a steady head, supposedly. Someone with a steady head did not abruptly decide to leave their job and life behind, to follow a stranger. Especially not a stranger that had fallen through their roof, after having tried to kill a prince.

An heir to the throne, now, it would no doubt be claimed. And there was her question.

“Would you have left today had the king not died?"

Gongchan hesitated, then shrugged. There was a knife in his belt, and when he was nervous, tense, thinking, his hand went to it. It went to it now.

“Not so quickly,” he said. “Maybe I might have waited until tomorrow, like you wanted."

Like she’d wanted. Maybe, if she’d waited until tomorrow, she would’ve changed her mind about all this. There were reasons to want to leave the capital at times like these, but given a night’s thinking, she might’ve decided to stay, danger or no. The kid had said it, traveling was dangerous. The last time she’d travelled, it’d been with an escort, a guard paid to ensure she would make it safely across the peninsula, to the capital. That had been years ago. She hadn’t left the capital since, not through her medical training, nor the year since it ended. She’d been much younger at the time, a lot more curious, a lot more scared, and a lot more excited. Perhaps, it was because at the time, she knew, to a degree, what awaited her.

Right now, she didn’t even know where they were going.

“What about your friends?” she asked next. “Why didn’t you take them with you?"

Another pause, another shrug. The reins were wrapped loosely around one of his hands, but the mule would have plodded on regardless. “They’ll be fine,” he said. A look, a cloud, crossed his face. “Perhaps better than fine."

“Work?” she asked lightly.

The boy tensed, and then nodded.

“This - “ she swept a hand broadly, indicating herself, him, the mule, and the road “ - it’s because of what happened that night. You think the child prince might have real power."

“I don’t know.” The answer came immediately. The explanation, not so much. Another stretch of road, another finger’s width of the sun’s arc. “Not the child, but those behind him. I…learned some things. About why someone paid for that night, mostly. Who. That sort of thing. I guess you get curious when you get a job like that, and then you mess it up."

Laughter, unexpectedly. But the sort that held no humor, not at the world, at the least. He was no child, not truly, and here was another moment where Dongwoo was faced with that realisation. He was frightened, yes, but there was a hardness there she was not accustomed to seeing, not in someone so young, not even among the waifs who frequented the streets and who had known which doctors would provide help if it were truly needed. It frightened her, that hardness. Which would not do, as a doctor - she could not afford to be afraid.

Dongwoo did not voice her own thoughts immediately, the ones that mulled over just what it was that Gongchan had learned. Nor did she particularly believe in coincidences - but the coincidence that the boy had sent his friends to find her on the very day the king was to pass away - that was a coincidence she could not ignore. She wanted to ask if he had known about the king’s death, perhaps his particularly precarious health. But she wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know the answer. 

“But you chose to,” Dongwoo said slowly. “You chose to not complete what you…had been paid to do."

Gongchan turned to look at her, his lips forming something akin to a smile. “You don’t know that,” he said, and then turned away to look straight ahead. 

She didn’t, of course. 

“You still haven’t asked about where we’re going,” Gongchan said.

Dongwoo startled, sitting up a little straighter in the saddle. “I thought you’d tell me eventually,” she said. They were going west. North and west, she surmised, because there wasn’t much straight west but water. “Unless you don’t know either."

Gongchan shrugged, giving her a cheeky smile. “There are some options,” he said. “But I haven’t made up my mind."

An idea was half formed in her mind, had been, for some time. “My home is north of here,” she said, without really thinking. Gongchan fixed her with a steady look. “My mother would be glad to see me, and I don’t think she would mind a…friend."

Gongchan laughed, a bark of laughter, tinged with something bordering on distrust. “I’m your friend? Since when?"

Dongwoo squared her shoulders, feeling herself bristle. “By the time we arrived I hoped we would at least appear to be,” she said. “It was just a suggestion anyway."

“You haven’t even told me your name yet,” Gongchan said. “I don’t think we’re friends."

“My name?” Dongwoo blinked. She hadn’t, that was true. “I guess I thought if you knew where I worked you would already—"

“Know it? I do."

“Then why did you ask?"

“I didn’t.” Gongchan glanced at her, shrugged, his eyes flashing. “I just said you never told me."

An argument was forming in Dongwoo’s chest - she took a breath, let it go, felt it expel from her body. Calm and steady. He’d taken her off guard, that sudden deluge of wariness, of sharpness. It didn’t matter that Gongchan probably wasn’t his real name, it didn’t matter that she knew nothing about the boy either. It didn’t matter and it wasn’t worth kicking up a fuss over. That, at least, was what she told herself.

“You’re right,” she said instead. “A lot has happened, and maybe it’s naive but I’ve decided to trust you, so I was hoping you could trust me as well. I didn’t tell you my name because you didn’t ask, and I’ve been caught up in my own thoughts. First you tell me someone might try to kill me, and then suddenly the king is dead, and then I’m out of the city with you - and yes, I know that was my own idea, and I’m happy that you’ve let me come with you. But I don’t know what faces us, and, I suspect, neither do you."

Dongwoo was not used to speaking so much all at once, and throughout it, not once had Gongchan nor the mule stopped walking. Only when she stopped, did the boy stop as well, the mule coming to an instinctive stop as the reins tightened and held him back. Dongwoo swayed slightly at the abrupt change, and frowned. She was not one easily given over to anger, and although her nerves were sorely tried from the events of the past few hours, a life’s worth of personality was not so quickly changed. There was a second, a very long seeming second, during which the boy’s back faced her, insurmountable and impenetrable. 

“We can go north.” He said this without turning, meeting her eyes only after he paused. “A lot _has_ happened. I’m sorry. I’m not used to speaking to…"

“Women?"

Gongchan chuckled, then shook his head. “People who aren’t friends. I don’t meet new people very often."

“You get used to it,” Dongwoo answered automatically, without any feeling. She still felt uneasy sometimes, speaking to strangers. “We should probably keep moving, though."

“I’ve never been north,” Gongchan admitted, as he started walking once again. He craned over his shoulder to look up at Dongwoo. “I’ve been wondering though, isn’t Dongwoo—"

And there was the question that she had been anticipating. “Isn’t Dongwoo a boy’s name?” she interrupted, and felt a little too gleeful when he clamped his mouth shut and nodded.

“My grandmother named me before I was born, and my parents wanted a son,” she answered primly. “And I happen to like the name, so I’ve kept it."

“It’s a nice name,” Gongchan offered after a moment. If Dongwoo didn’t know better, she’d say there was a tinge of shyness in his voice.

Dongwoo was unused to such compliments. Had she been the young lady her mother had deplored her to be, with all the composure and manners and etiquette that would make her attractive to court, she might have grown used to it, for she was not unhandsome, but be the past as it was, Dongwoo had spent her youth cloistered with old masters and students more interested in their books and the properties of the body than the makeup of one as a whole. She blushed, a little, confused. Gongchan offered nothing else, and for many more hours it seemed, they travelled that way. Gongchan was not a man of many words, or perhaps, like Dongwoo, he simply had a lot on his mind. They stopped to inquire for directions a few times, and through a few brief exchanges, decided that they were cousins, and Gongchan was accompanying Dongwoo on her visit home.

“Men travel,” Gongchan had said simply. “That’s usual. But womenfolk, well, they don’t."

“You mean they stay at home and tend to the children?” Dongwoo had suggested, and was rewarded when the tips of the boy’s ears clearly turned red. “Well as it happens, I’ve no inclination for that just yet, and it’s perfectly usual for young people just learning their craft to travel, isn’t it?"

He hadn’t said anything after that, and Dongwoo hadn’t had anything to add, and the conversation had ended there.

They stopped at a way inn about an hour before the sun set. They glanced at each other, Gongchan uneasily and Dongwoo steadily, while she decided that they would share a room with two beds, as she wasn’t “made of money, even if some people seem to be.” Gongchan insisted on paying for their meal, and Dongwoo knew that they would have to work out something soon. She’d brought what savings she had with her, of course, but she wasn’t sure how far they would stretch. Travelling, she was quickly realizing, involved much more than simply pulling up your roots and walking out the door.

They both agreed they’d sleep early so they could leave when the sun rose. 

 

After what could only be described as a tumultuous start to their journey, the next few days were ploddingly straightforward and uneventful. They worked out the costs by midmorning of the second day - Gongchan argued that since they would be staying at Dongwoo’s house, he should pay for their accommodation on route. After all, he said, he had to eat and sleep anyway. When Dongwoo asked if he really would be staying at way inns the entire way - and, she pointed out, perhaps he might have travelled to some small town much closer - he sidestepped her questions by handing her a bun, and remarking loudly about the colors of a particular flower by the side of the road, that he stooped to take a closer look at. They continued to share a room, although, if they could help it, not a bed. On the third night, they neared a somewhat busy city that sat in the middle of two trade crossroads. The only room available had a single bed - Dongwoo lasted about ten minutes, watching Gongchan sleep on the floor on top of his cloak, before she huffed and told him to come to the bed, they could share, it wasn’t like either of them were going to do anything and it seemed extremely silly to risk stiff limbs and a cold when there was an alternative.  
The afternoon of the fifth day was the closest they got to misadventure, when the road they were taking seemed to circle around and end at a forest. They’d taken a look at the forest, then at each other, then had traced their steps back, and had continued tramping north until they were on a road again. They’d lost half a day’s worth of travel, Dongwoo estimated, but it could have been much worse.

It was also about the fifth day before Gongchan seemed to slowly warm up to her. For the most part, they’d been walking in silence - or riding in silence, in her case, as the boy insisted she ride most of the time. She asked about his old injuries, the ones she’d treated, and gotten a noncommittal shrug and noise in response. Considering how forward he’d been when they’d first met, and the lengths he’d gone to to warn her about the possible danger, it took Dongwoo a surprisingly long time to pin down that it wasn’t so much that Gongchan disliked her, so much as he was shy. He’d said that he wasn’t used to talking to strangers, but she hadn’t realized just how much. He didn’t seem to have any trouble with the innkeepers, or with greeting other travelers, but he was far more likely to glance at her when he thought she wasn’t looking, than to ask her whatever it was that was on his mind. It was, Dongwoo decided, the closest he got to reminding her of his age.

His gradual increased willingness to make conversation was possibly related to a short bout of panic on Dongwoo's part, sometime between the realisation that they were not heading in a right direction, and making the decision to turn back and try again. The short bout of panic may have involved an off-handed comment on her part about being stuck in a forest with someone who _didn't even talk_ for the rest of her life.

"I talk," Gongchan had quipped, blinking at her with something that looked suspiciously like a smile.

"No you don't," had been her incredibly clever rejoinder - at which the boy had promptly begun to ramble senselessly, telling her about anything and everything, until they were back on a road. 

She had learned, for example, that when he was very young, he had once tried on a dress - everyone had mistaken him for a girl. He also told her about how he'd met Tao and Wonsik, although she suspected that he was leaving out a lot. Not once did he refer to the job he'd been doing when he'd first met her - instead, he told her about how he worked during the day in an inn, helping to cook and clean and serve meals. It wasn't, he admitted, very exciting. At some point, she'd asked, in a fashion, about why he did what he did when he had an actual job. The boy's lips had quirked upwards, accompanied by a small shrug. "It's what I've always done," he'd said. "Maybe I'll quit, some day."

They had left it at that.

It was early afternoon a few days later when the scenery around them began to shift into that which was familiar from Dongwoo's childhood. Gongchan had been quiet all day, hadn't said much since the night before, when Dongwoo had mentioned that they should be arriving soon.

The copse of trees on the hill - she'd sprained her ankle there once. The stream where she'd been taught to swim. The farm where they would play hide and seek.

"Are we still cousins?" Gongchan had asked earlier in the day. Dongwoo had blinked. She'd forgotten that was what the story had been, while they were on the road. It had come up only once. She shook her head.

"No, you're my friend, remember?" she said, then looked to him for confirmation.

The boy hadn't met her eyes, whether intentionally or because he was locked into his own thoughts, his lips pressed into a thin line as he'd stared ahead.

He had that same look now, as they approached the bounds of the town where Dongwoo had grown up.

A certain eagerness had wormed its way into her skin as the day had progressed, but now, it was replaced with a slow, faint dread. She hadn't been home in years - hadn't been home since she'd left it, left behind her mother and her grandmother and her father's grave. As much as the memories had trickled back as they had approached, so too did she understand just how fuzzy these memories were. She tried to remember where exactly her father’s grave was, and couldn’t. She tried to remember her mother’s face, but could only recall her back as she rummaged through the shelves and the indistinct recollection of a smile. The year after she’d left for the capital, her mother had sent her a letter, briefly detailing how her grandmother had passed away, and how the rites had been performed. Dongwoo had cried then, had still remembered her grandmother’s embrace the day she’d left, the smell of her skin, the lilting rhythm in her words from an age now passed. She remembered none of that now, only that she had been very comforting when she was a child, and had often brushed her hair. 

It wasn’t much of a surprise, then, that they entered the village without a word, almost absentmindedly. Dongwoo looked about her, taking in things both familiar and unfamiliar, although whether it was because she’d forgotten what the sign over the store looked like or because it was new, or different, she had no idea. Their family had lived in a house somewhere between the market and the outskirts - it made sense, her family having been doctors for generations. They walked briskly, both of them now, Gongchan leading the mule. It hadn’t really been very long since she’d last been here, yet either those she passed did not recognize her, or she did not recognize them. Perhaps both. What she did not realize was that she had left a child and had returned a woman, and in those years, a lot had changed that she herself did not pay much attention to. So, it couldn’t have been said to be much of a surprise that what looks she did attract were ones of curiosity, and not of recognition.

Some part of her felt a little let down, that she was returning home in this way. An odd part. A part she did not understand.

Had she expected fanfare? Perhaps. But this…this was too quiet. This was no different than any other town they had passed through, they were no different than any other strangers.

Gongchan, though, she supposed was a stranger. She glanced at him - there was no visible change in his demeanor, nothing to suggest whether he was nervous, anxious, excited, or any particular emotion whatsoever. She had been the one to suggest coming here, she recalled. He had said that he’d had no real destination in mind. Now that he’d seen her hometown, was he rethinking things? Perhaps he’d leave, now that they’d arrive. There was nothing that either of them had said that would suggest the two of them would continue to travel together. It seemed almost a shame, now that they were something bordering on friends. Had he imagined a larger town? A smaller town? There was nothing on his face that might give it away, and Dongwoo did not pry.

It wasn’t until she stood in front of the door that she’d run in and out of so often as a child, a door that seemed ever smaller than in her memories, did she say “we’re here."

“Thank….you,” Gongchan said, hesitant, pausing. “For having me."

Dongwoo smiled at him, and pushed the door open. “What else are friends for?"  



	3. Chapter 3

It was raining, the morning Lee Sandeul - for he went by Sandeul here, in this court where he used his voice more than his blade - awoke with a premonition. He woke with daylight on his face, as he felt out the changes in the air. He lay for long moments with his eyes open, faintly aware of the rain which fell beyond the walls, trying to discern what it was that nudged at his innermost consciousness, but to no avail. After some time, he arose and dressed before going to wake Jinyoung. It had been more than four years now since they had fled the capital, out of fear for the prince’s safety. If they could kill the crown prince, a lesser one would pose little trouble, and neither of them was foolish enough to believe that it was merely coincidence Jinyoung had been set upon by bandits at the exact moment the crown prince had been killed.

He’d had a premonition that morning too, one that had led him to ride out with the princeling on the hunt that morning, laden with far more than he would have needed for a few hours in the mountains. Jaewook’s was not the only royal blood that should have been shed that day, but that was something most did not need to know.

They had drifted from city to city, patron to patron for some months as poet and bard, before settling here in Guiyang for the better part of three years. A sort of self imposed exile in the far reaches of the kingdom, but it was a city that had never seen a prince, nor knew what it was any of them looked like. And what was not known could not be given away. Jinyoung had been satisfied, and Junghwan wanted only to protect his prince.

Despite the rain, Sandeul was not alone when he ventured into the gardens. A silhouette occupied the pavilion as he approached, but he was too near and too wet to turn back. Besides, it was a familiar sillouhette.

“Am I intruding?” he called out as he approached.

In the pavilion, Jaehwan startled, eyes wide as he turned at the voice. His surprise broke quickly into a smile, and he beckoned Sandeul to join him.

Jaehwan was the son of the duke, but over the past few years, Junghwan had come to think of him as more friend than patron. He had strong, handsome features; smiling eyes and a prominent nose with a mouth that was easily cheerful. Junghwan liked him, and liked his easy manner. Still, he had not expected to see him here, this morning. Woken as he had been that morning, seeing Jaehwan in this place that Junghwan had come to take for granted as a sanctuary of sorts - that left him with a feeling not easy to shake.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here,” Junghwan admitted as he stepped into the pavilion and out of the rain. He sketched a bow out of habit, before proceeding to shake himself off like a wet dog.

Jaehwan laughed, taking a step back to avoid the spray. 

“I wasn’t expecting to be here,” Jaehwan answered in kind. “I was caught in the rain - like you."

“I wasn’t _caught_ ,” Junghwan said, not entirely hiding the whine in his voice.

“Do you make it a habit to get wet?” Jaehwan teased, his eyes twinkling. He returned to where he’d been standing by the railing, and Junghwan joined him, staring out into the morning’s light mist.

“Like you’re one to talk,” Junghwan grumbled. Jaehwan laughed at this, handing him a square of silk to wipe his face with.

“I was walking when it started to rain, and this was the first place I found to shelter - I didn’t even realise it existed, but clearly you did!"

“I like to come here to think," Junghwan said.

The pavilion was secluded, far from the main paths of the garden. A small branch of the central stream ran behind it, and from one side, it was hidden by a rocky hill that towered over the pavilion. Junghwan had found it in his first month here, looking for a Jinyoung that had yet to return - lost, it turned out. Since then, he had come here often, always alone. Perhaps, had it been anyone else, rain or no, Junghwan would have turned around regardless, or perhaps he would have willed them to leave as he stood hidden elsewhere, so attached had he become to this small alcove of solitude, but Jaehwan was different - and all but master to this garden, heedless of whether he knew every inch of it or not.

Most days, Jaewhan would have teased Junghwan about that - he teased Junghwan about most things, and Junghwan gave as much as he got. Today, however, Jaehwan was quiet, eyes fixed on some veil shape in the distance. This was how he knew the young son of the Duke had something on his mind, just as Junghwan had the feeling on his. But Junghwan would not pry. Not if Jaehwan didn’t want him to.

But Jaehwan had risen well before dawn, had lain there sleepless for some time before rising in silence, dressing in the dark. He’d left for the gardens just as Junghwan would do some hours later. He, however, had been alone the entire time, left with only his thoughts - Junghwan at least had been briefly distracted when Jinyoung, still largely asleep, had caught Junghwan’s wrist and pulled him down for a lazy kiss. Now, surrounded by this rain that seemed almost an entrapment, someone had come to him, and it was someone Jaehwan unabashedly counted as a friend.

“Word from my sister arrived last night,” Jaehwan said. His sister had been away and married for some years now, happy and with a child, or so he’d thought. “The earl - the man she married, passed away. She doesn’t know what to do."

Junghwan blinked. A long blink. “I’m sorry for her loss,” he said finally. He was not good with things like this. He was not good with death.

Unexpectedly, Jaehwan laughed. “I don’t know why I told you, that was strange of me. Forget I said anything."

“You don’t speak of her often - to me.” The rain cooled Junghwan’s skin as it dried, and he rubbed absentmindedly at his wrist. “You’re worried, so you came out to walk. And think."

Another sharp burst of laughter before Jaehwan fell abruptly silent. “I don’t know what to tell her either, her child - sorry, I didn’t mean to…"

Junghwan, frankly, had no wisdom nor answer to offer, and he said so, in as many words. Still unsettled by the morning, he had no quip nor rejoinder either. Instead, the news settled on him heavily, as if in concert with the rain. He counted Jaehwan as friend, but here, Junghwan was but an accessory of the court, and it was not his place. On another day, another morning, Junghwan may have asked about her child, about the former earl, advisor, about the time it would take to travel. But this morning, Junghwan wore the crease of a frown as he watched the rain. It was not a heavy rain, or he would not have stepped outside, after hesitating at the door. Nor was it unsubstantial - the weight of his clothes spoke to that. Junghwan did not dislike the rain, nor did he hold any particular affection for it. He appreciated it, the way it seemed to soften the world and dull its senses, because sometimes, the world overwhelmed. Jinyoung, the prince, seemed to favor the rain at times, abhor it at others. He wrote it sometimes into his poems, a metaphor for time, he’d said once, waving his hand languidly as if it would help explain. A metaphor for anything - the moon in the rain. Jinyoung wrote often of love.

Jinyoung. The feeling, that nudge, the premonition, it had to do with Jinyoung. The prince had scarce been eighteen, that day in the woods. He’d been even younger, the day Junghwan, a young soldier not long having entered the service, sensed the danger and pushed the prince down, even before he saw the arrow. He had been rewarded for that, rewarded by companionship that Junghwan could only ever have dreamed of. Rewarded by… but no, that was a thought he’d put behind him long years ago, deciding that the past had its place only in the past.

He liked Jinyoung, owed his life to Jinyoung in some ways, had sworn his life to him, and had done it gladly. He’d never had guessed it would lead him to this place four years later, under the roof of a pavilion, standing next to a duke’s son as the rain fell about them while Junghwan mused over the young prince. The heir to the kingdom, now. The peninsula and the provinces beside. Jinyoung had always been adamant about that - with Jaewook dead, it was his birthright, and he intended to keep it. Junghwan had asked once, as Jinyoung set out one day to send a message that would clearly signal his continued life and existence, why he wanted the throne so badly. Jinyoung had given him a long hard look - “I don’t,” he’d said, after he’d turned away. “I want Jaewook to have it, but that can’t happen, can it?” His father, the king, had been strangely quiet on the subject - some said it was from grief, that he still denied Jaewook had ever died. The king had always seemed distant from his sons - Junghwan could only remember him speaking to Jinyoung, once - and Junghwan had spent almost every minute by Jinyoung’s side.

Yet, in his own way, Jinyoung loved the king, which Junghwan found even stranger - here was a man who barely acknowledged his children, yet demanded from them everything by his very being. Of course, by birth, Jinyoung had been gifted the world, but Junghwan was not sure if that was enough to warrant the love Jinyoung seemed to carry. By his birth his life had also been placed in perpetual peril - Junghwan much preferred a life that did not have a blade thirsting for his blood. But he was not Jinyoung, and every person had their own secrets close to their heart. This, Junghwan knew.

But none of this brought Junghwan any closer to the heart of his problem, which was --

“My lord, if I were to ask you who the heir to the throne was, what would you say?” Junghwan spoke in slow and measured tones, deliberating each word.

Jaehwan stared at him, startled by the abruptness of his question. “Heir?” he asked, brows creased in a furrow. “The missing prince of course, why?"

At that, Junghwan let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding for the past two years. Jaehwan looked at him strangely as Junghwan fought to keep the smile of relief from his face.

“No reason,” Junghwan said as nonchalantly as he could manage. He wasn’t sure he managed it very well.

When they’d settled down here, in Guiyang, it had been because it had been far from the peninsula, from the heart of civilization. The Duke of Guiyang had an appreciation for the arts and poetry, and found Jinyoung’s verses pleasing. The duke’s older son, Jaehwan, appreciated music, and had quickly struck up a rapport with the young soldier who’d clothed himself as a bard. Politics had played into it only so far as Guiyang was so far that the duke cared little for who ruled in the capital, so long as his own borders were defended. Yet if Jaehwan had said that he supported one of the younger princes...

It was on this thought that partway through the day, just before the midday meal, that Junghwan sat up very straight, clutching at Jinyoung’s arm. He could not have said how he knew, only that he did. “The king is dead,” Junghwan said, not knowing his nails dug through the fabric of Jinyoung’s sleeve, before fainting dead away, leaving Jinyoung with his heart dropping from his throat and a sudden aching gap in his chest.

Jinyoung ate alone that day, after he’d lifted Junghwan from the floor and carried him to his bed. Like Junghwan in the morning, he too, had much on his mind.

He had not woken with any premonition. He had woken to Junghwan hovering over him. He'd woken to Junghwan's pliable body, his plush lips. Junghwan hadn't seemed worried, or maybe Jinyoung simply hadn't noticed.

He had no doubt that Junghwan was wrong. No, Jinyoung knew by now that in times like this, Junghwan was never wrong.

What he doubted now was whether the past three years had been a waste, or if he'd done enough. If anything was enough.

On one hand, this was a day he'd been looking forward to. On the other, it was the one he'd dreaded with all his heart. There was no son who would wish for the day of their father's death. Yet it was necessary for Jinyoung to return. It _forced_ Jinyoung to return.

He wondered about his younger brothers.

His younger sisters, by now, would be largely married off, or promised.

Jinyoung was fond of his younger siblings, even if they hadn't been close. It was hard to be close to those who were, in some ways, your rivals - your enemies, if one took into account the scheming of the various political factions. He supposed it was because they'd seemed to look up to him, just as he'd looked up to Jaewook. They had also shared a bond beyond that of a shared father. They understood - those who were old enough - the burden that had been cast upon them by their birth. They understood that they would be pawns until they were crowned - if they were crowned. They understood that their life had been carved out for them, even before it had started.

They understood that one day, it was a distinct possibility that one of them may die at the other's hands, if not directly, then in their cause.

And now, that day had come.

Perhaps he was lucky, because Jinyoung was now free of the court. Junghwan had asked him once why he was so eager to return, to become king, if he had so many misgivings about it. Jinyoung had said something, then, but the truth was, he was afraid. It was his birthright, he knew, and one that he _had_ to claim. Yet so much was uncertain. Would he be able to claim it? Or would he be killed, the past four years a waste. And if he lived, would his legitimacy be affirmed, or rejected? Would the process be peaceful, or bloody? And. And if he was to rule this land, would he do it well, or would he be remembered as a failed ruler who'd undone all his ancestors had accomplished, and destroyed it past all repair?

Yes, there was much on his mind.

But little could be done with thought alone. There would be time to grieve, he told himself.

For now, he stood, letting reluctantly go of Junghwan's hand. The boy looked so peaceful, nothing like the panic that had marred his features, as he'd uttered those words.

Jinyoung shook his head and turned, crossing the room to the desk. Seating himself, he reached for the inkstick and the inkstone, and the small crock of water he kept there. Slowly, methodically, he poured a small amount of water onto the stone, and just as slowly, methodically, he dipped the inkstick into the water, and slowly, methodically, began to grind the ink in small, regular circles. He did not need much, he guessed. Or perhaps he did. He hadn't decided yet, what it was he'd sat down to write.

He gathered his brushes, a sheet of paper. He lay it down carefully, pinning the ends down with jade stones, carved into the shape of foxes.

He dipped the brush into the ink, staining the white tip midnight black. He lifted it, wrist bent, eyes slightly narrowed as he regarded the blank whiteness of the paper.

No, he knew exactly what he'd set out to write. He'd known it for the past three years.

 

When Junghwan awoke, the sun was halfway down the sky and Jinyoung cast a shadow over his face. The orange rays diffused against the prince's profile, and Junghwan traced the angle of his eyes, his nose, his lips with his gaze. Something, maybe a shift in the air, a shift in the shadows, alerted the prince and he turned, a certain relief in the weariness painted over his visage, as he saw Junghwan awake.

"Maybe I shouldn't keep you up so much at night," he teased, but it fell somewhat flat.

Junghwan smiled anyway, brief, before letting it fall.

"You know," he said.

He didn't need to see Jinyoung's face to know the answer.

A dim exhaustion still lingered - Junghwan couldn't summon the energy to bring himself upright. Still, he reached out, fingers grasping at Jinyoung's sleeve. The prince turned, his eyes unfocussed, themselves a question.

"The wait is over," the prince said. His voice was flat, no inflection, no trace of emotion.

A lump rose in Junghwan's throat. He wanted to tell him that it was alright to mourn, but there were responsibilities, things to do, plans to put into place. So instead, he nodded, and what he said was--

"Get Jaehwan."

A flash of true emotion crossed Jinyoung's face.

"Trust me," Junghwan said.

And Jinyoung did. He really did.

 

By the time the prince returned with the duke's heir, Junghwan was seated at the table. He'd heated water for the tea, and that was how the pair found him; one hand holding his sleeve out of the way, the other grasping the teapot, his body frozen, his eyes focussed on space. His mind was spinning, thoughts racing. Encompassed with an overwhelming numbness, like the morning fog on an early spring day.

He looked up as the door opened, and smiled, resuming the task of pouring the tea into the cups he'd set out.

Jinyoung still appeared puzzled - Jaehwan doubly so.

For a moment, Sandeul felt a pang of guilt - Jaehwan had enough to deal with, without this. But to leave him in the dark would also be unfair.

He gestured for them to sit down, despite this being the prince's room, and despite Jinyoung being his liege. They did so, and in short order, they were ranged around the table, the door closed, the sun on its way to setting.

Junghwan was not used to things like this. He took a deep breath, and then looked Jaehwan in the eye.

"You told me this morning that you considered the missing prince the heir to the throne," Junghwan said. He glanced at the prince - Jinyoung's eyes had opened wide, a quick understanding of what Junghwan was about to reveal. Junghwan shook his head, frowned, then nodded. Jaehwan, on the other hand, was perplexed, his brows creased in a frown.

"I did," Jaehwan said. "You asked me very suddenly."

"What if," Junghwan said slowly, about to reveal a secret that had been kept hidden - had to have been kept hidden - for years. He couldn't look at Jinyoung, not now. "What if I said, that the prince was no longer missing."

"What?" Jaehwan sat up in surprise. "What do you mean?"

Junghwan looked at Jinyoung again - this time, Jinyoung, although frowning, nodded at him, to continue.

"What if I said...that the king - the last king - had just died?"

Now, Jaehwan was beyond puzzled, almost angry.

"Are you talking treason? What joke are you--"

"It's not a joke," Jinyoung interrupted. "It's also not treason."

"What--"

"Junghwan has always had a gift," Jinyoung said. "And I believe that Junghwan asked me to bring you, so that I could tell you that the prince was never missing - he's been here, all along."

Jaehwan opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

"Junghwan...?" is what he finally said, slowly turning to look at Sandeul as if he'd never seen him before.

Junghwan bowed his head, his eyes shut.

"Yes, my name is Junghwan. I am truly sorry for deceiving you, my lord," he said. "But what the prince says is true. We had no choice but to deceive you."

This was necessary, he reminded himself. And to leave without a word - that was not an option he wanted to consider, either. To leave, and for Jaehwan not to know the truth - that, Junghwan also did not want. He would learn the truth, sooner or later.

And, he admitted selfishly, they would need help and support. And even more selfishly, Junghwan wanted to tell Jaehwan, as a friend.

There was a hand on his arm. Junghwan looked up to see Jaehwan's kindly expression.

"Sandeul or Junghwan, it doesn't matter," the duke's son said. "You're still you. But, I would like an explanation."

And, Junghwan, with yet another look towards Jinyoung, wondering, not for the first time, why he was doing the talking and not the prince, began.

He started from the day, when he, as a fifteen year old, a young and fresh recruit, had pushed the young prince out of the path of an arrow, the arrow embedding itself into Junghwan's arm instead. He had known, he explained, before the arrow had even left the string - maybe before the arrow had even been nocked. Jaehwan's frown deepened a little, but he nodded. He had served the prince since that day, Junghwan said, and gladly.

He did not, however, divulge the details that he deemed unnecessary, the details that their relationship had taken, the ones that went beyond prince and guard.

He did, however, tell Jaehwan about how, on that fateful morning, Junghwan had _known_ that there would be trouble, even if he did not know what. He told him about how they'd been separated from the crown prince, how they'd been set upon by bandits, how Junghwan had had mere seconds of warning - but that had been enough for him and Jinyoung to draw their blades, and fight.

He did not mention that it was the first time Jinyoung had ever killed another human.

They had not learned until later, when they'd descended from the mountains, bloody and disheveled, that the crown prince was dead. But Junghwan had been prepared. He'd simply turned his horse, instructed his prince to follow, and galloped dead away from the capital. Jinyoung, amazingly, did as he was told, for once.

That first night, they stayed at an inn, one small enough and out of the way enough that few questions were asked of two travellers. They had shed their bloody clothes in the woods, burning those that were torn, stuffing into their packs those that could be salvaged. Jinyoung did not ask how Junghwan had known to bring spare clothes, of all things. He'd merely accepted it.

By the second night, the news had spread.

A few suspicious looks were cast their way, perhaps by those who knew what the young prince looked like. They ate quickly, retired early, and agreed that it would be wise to avoid inns.

Junghwan did not tell him that Jinyoung had been an angry red, the red of fire and blood, the red of fury, smoldering like coals. He did not tell him that the sadness and grief, a pale, quiet blue had been buried so deep that it was barely visible, flickering in and out of hiding. He did not tell him about his own helplessness, able to do nothing but provide what little comfort he could. And it had been little enough.

He did tell him that by the third night, they knew that they would have to travel far and fast. They knew that by necessity, they would have to go into hiding. Both from those who would seek to end the prince's life, and those who wanted him gone and discredited, to forward their own agendas. What was clear was that it was not safe to remain in the capital, near the capital - anywhere near the peninsula.

And so, the plans had begun to fall into place.

The first place they settled in briefly was about three weeks away from the capital. The next, perhaps four. Jinyoung had proposed disguising themselves as mercenaries. Junghwan had been quick to point out that Jinyoung usually had his hands full protecting himself - and that no matter how skilled he was with a sword, that skill paled in comparison to his utter lack of experience wielding it in true battle. Which was how, Junghwan explained, they had taken on the roles of poet and bard, despite the lack of civilisation outside the capital.

"I don't mean here," Junghwan was quick to say. "This province has been one of the most civilized places we have stayed."

"Good to hear," Jaehwan said, an amused quirk of his lips.

Every so often - every six months, on the anniversary of the crown prince's death - Jinyoung would ride away from where they were staying, the next town over, perhaps, and remind the world that he was, indeed alive.

Jaehwan let out a small noise, then. Junghwan nodded at him. Jaehwan must have known, too, and Jinyoung's twice a year sojourns fell into place.

"The poems..." Jaehwan said. "They sounded...familiar."

Jinyoung smiled softly.

"Except....they were signed as...Junghwan...?"

Junghwan blinked. Pointed at himself. Stared at Jinyoung. Stared at Jaehwan. Stared at Jinyoung.

Jinyoung shrugged. "I couldn't use my own name, could I?" he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Junghwan shook his head in disbelief, but continued regardless.

Not that there was much more to tell. Eventually, they had arrived in Guiyang, and had entered the service of the duke's court. They had stayed, because it was safe, and because it had been a good place to ply their supposed trade. After all, Jinyoung had commented, it was far better to write verse for those who understood it, and to sing for those who knew a _qin_ from a duck. They were far more accustomed to their roles as well - although it had been easier for Jinyoung to stop acting the lord than for Junghwan to start acting as if he and Jinyoung were equals.

By the time they'd arrived, Junghwan had been travelling under the name of Sandeul for many months. There would be those who'd know to look for Jinyoung and Junghwan - fewer who'd be suspicious of Jinyoung and another unknown man, for Jinyoung was his childhood name, and a common enough one at that.

Jaehwan knew the rest, for he'd been part of the rest.

When Junghwan finished, the tea was cold, and all three men were silent.

The sun had fallen below the rim of the sky, and Junghwan stood to light a lamp and cover the windows. Jinyoung, Junghwan noted, was covered in grief, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Perhaps, he mused, it was because there was no anger this time.

Jinyoung was quiet, and Jaehwan was contemplative.

Junghwan did not know how to break the silence.

He liked Jaehwan, he truly did. He trusted him too. Jinyoung had trusted him enough to bring him, the first outsider to know of his own father's death. That had to count for something. Junghwan had told the prince to trust him, but the truth was, Junghwan was afraid. But Junghwan trusted his prince. He trusted his prince more than the world.

Jaehwan cleared his throat.

"So," the heir to Guiyang said, "what would you like me to do?"

"You'll help us?" Junghwan jumped to his feet. "Really? Truly?"

"Was there ever any doubt?"

Jinyoung, silent for so long in his own corner, snorted.

"Ignore him," the prince said. "He's being silly."

"I am not!" Junghwan protested, but sat down anyway, pouting despite his age and the gravity of the situation.

Jaehwan laughed, loud and open; Junghwan saw some of the tension dissipate. More importantly, he saw some of Jinyoung's grief fade, replaced with the pale pink of hope.

The prince sat up straighter, leaning in towards Jaehwan, arms on the table. There was a look there that Junghwan had not seen in a while, one of eagerness, of optimism. One that looked towards the future, and was not afraid of what stood there.

"Here's what we need," he said.

And his subjects listened.


End file.
